Method and apparatus for reduced capability terminal to perform random access using a plurality of search spaces and a plurality of control resource sets in mobile wireless communication system

This Patent Application is a Continuation Application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/089,585, filed on Dec. 28, 2022, now U.S. Pat. No. 12,058,743, which is a Continuation Application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/089,585, filed on Aug. 4, 2022, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,638,311 which claims the benefit of priority based on Korean Patent Application No. 10-2021-0119129, filed on Sep. 7, 2021, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for a terminal with reduced capability in a wireless communication system to obtain system information and access a New Radio cell.

To meet the increasing demand for wireless data traffic since the commercialization of 4th generation (4G) communication systems, the 5th generation (5G) system is being developed. For the sake of high, 5G system introduced millimeter wave (mmW) frequency bands (e. g. 60 GHz bands). In order to increase the propagation distance by mitigating propagation loss in the 5G communication system, various techniques are introduced such as beamforming, massive multiple-input multiple output (MIMO), full dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antenna, analog beamforming, and large-scale antenna. In addition, base station is divided into a central unit and plurality of distribute units for better scalability. To facilitate introduction of various services, 5G communication system targets supporting higher data rate and smaller latency.

Various attempts are being made to apply the 5G communication system to the IoT network. For example, 5G communication such as sensor network, machine to machine communication (M2M), and machine type communication (MTC) is being implemented by techniques such as beam forming, MIMO, and array antenna.

The terminal performing the MTC communication requires only limited performance compared to a general smart phone, and a terminal having only reduced capability for MTC communication is referred to as a RedCap UE. In order to efficiently support RedCap UE in a mobile communication system, there is a need to introduce a new technology to an existing mobile communication system.

Aspects of the present disclosure are to address the various methods of implementing NR cell access in mobile communication system. Accordingly, an aspect of the present disclosure is to provide a method and an apparatus for receiving, by a terminal from a base station, a System Information Block1, determining, by the terminal, a preamble format and a subframe and a starting symbol based on the prach-ConfigurationIndex included in the first RACH-ConfigCommon if the second RACH-ConfigCommon is not included in the ServingCellConfigCommon and the prach-ConfigurationIndex included in the second RACH-ConfigCommon if the second RACH-ConfigCommon is included in the ServingCellConfigCommon and transmitting, by the terminal, the preamble based at least in part on the preamble format and the subframe and the starting symbol.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In addition, in the description of the present invention, if it is determined that a detailed description of a related known function or configuration may unnecessarily obscure the gist of the present invention, the detailed description thereof will be omitted. In addition, the terms to be described later are terms defined in consideration of functions in the present invention, which may vary according to intentions or customs of users and operators. Therefore, the definition should be made based on the content throughout this specification.

The terms used, in the following description, for indicating access nodes, network entities, messages, interfaces between network entities, and diverse identity information is provided for convenience of explanation. Accordingly, the terms used in the following description are not limited to specific meanings but may be replaced by other terms equivalent in technical meanings.

In the following descriptions, the terms and definitions given in the 3GPP standards are used for convenience of explanation. However, the present disclosure is not limited by use of these terms and definitions and other arbitrary terms and definitions may be employed instead.

Table 1 lists the acronyms used throughout the present disclosure.

Table 2 lists the terminologies and their definition used throughout the present disclosure.

In the present invention, “trigger” or “triggered” and “initiate” or “initiated” may be used in the same meaning.

In the present invention, a terminal with reduced capability and RedCap UE may be used in the same meaning.

is a diagram illustrating the architecture of an 5G system and a NG-RAN to which the disclosure may be applied.

5G system consists of NG-RAN 1A-01 and 5GC 1A-02. An NG-RAN node is either:

The gNBs 1A-05 or 1A-06 and ng-eNBs 1A-03 or 1A-04 are interconnected with each other by means of the Xn interface. The gNBs and ng-eNBs are also connected by means of the NG interfaces to the 5GC, more specifically to the AMF (Access and Mobility Management Function) and to the UPF (User Plane Function). AMF 1A-07 and UPF 1A-08 may be realized as a physical node or as separate physical nodes.

A gNB 1A-05 or 1A-06 or an ng-eNBs 1A-03 or 1A-04 hosts the functions listed below.

The AMF 1A-07 hosts the functions such as NAS signaling, NAS signaling security, AS security control, SMF selection, Authentication, Mobility management and positioning management.

The UPF 1A-08 hosts the functions such as packet routing and forwarding, transport level packet marking in the uplink, QoS handling and the downlink, mobility anchoring for mobility etc.

is a diagram illustrating a wireless protocol architecture in an 5G system to which the disclosure may be applied.

User plane protocol stack consists of SDAP 1B-01 or 1B-02, PDCP 1B-03 or 1B-04, RLC 1B-05 or 1B-06, MAC 1B-07 or 1B-08 and PHY 1B-09 or 1B-10. Control plane protocol stack consists of NAS 1B-11 or 1B-12, RRC 1B-13 or 1B-14, PDCP, RLC, MAC and PHY.

5 Each protocol sublayer performs functions related to the operations listed in the table 3.

A reduced capability UE or RedCap UE has lower performance than a general UE and is used in limited scenarios such as IOT. Compared to a typical terminal having a bandwidth of 100 MHz, a transmission/reception speed of several Gbps, and four or more Rx processing units (Rx branches), RedCap terminals have a bandwidth of 20 MHz, a transmission/reception speed of several tens of Mbps, and two or less Rx processing units.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for a RedCap UE to access a cell supporting RedCap, receive system information, and perform necessary operations. In particular, the terminal applies search space 0 (Search Space 0, hereinafter SS #0) and control resource set 0 (Control Resource Set 0, hereinafter CORESET #0) in the initial bandwidth part (IBWP) to obtain system information.

is a diagram illustrating an example of a bandwidth part.

With Bandwidth Adaptation (BA), the receive and transmit bandwidth of a UE need not be as large as the bandwidth of the cell and can be adjusted: the width can be ordered to change (e.g. to shrink during period of low activity to save power); the location can move in the frequency domain (e.g. to increase scheduling flexibility); and the subcarrier spacing can be ordered to change (e.g. to allow different services). A subset of the total cell bandwidth of a cell is referred to as a Bandwidth Part (BWP) and BA is achieved by configuring the UE with BWP(s) and telling the UE which of the configured BWPs is currently the active one.

describes a scenario wheredifferent BWPs are configured:

is a diagram illustrating an example of a search space and a control resource set.

A plurality of SSs may be configured in one BWP. The UE monitors PDCCH candidates according to the SS configuration of the currently active BWP. One SS consists of an SS identifier, a CORESET identifier indicating the associated CORESET, the period and offset of the slot to be monitored, the slot unit duration, the symbol to be monitored in the slot, the SS type, and the like. The information may be explicitly and individually configured or may be configured by a predetermined index related to predetermined values.

One CORESET consists of a CORESET identifier, frequency domain resource information, symbol unit duration, TCI state information, and the like.

Basically, it can be understood that CORESET provides frequency domain information to be monitored by the UE, and SS provides time domain information to be monitored by the UE.

CORESET #0 and SS #0 may be configured in the IBWP. One CORESET and a plurality of SSs may be additionally configured in the IBWP. Upon receiving the MIB 2B-01, the UE recognizes CORESET #0 2B-02 and SS #0 2B-03 for receiving SIB1 using predetermined information included in the MIB. The UE receives SIB1 2B-05 through CORESET #0 2B-02 and SS #0 2B-03. In SIB1, information constituting CORESET #0 2B-06 and SS #0 2B-07 and information constituting another CORESET, for example, CORESET #n 2B-11 and SS #m 2B-13 may be included.

The terminal receives necessary information from the base station before the terminal enters the RRC_CONNECTED state, such as SIB2 reception, paging reception, and random access response message reception by using the CORESETs and SSs configured in SIB1. CORESET #0 2B-02 configured in MIB and CORESET #0 2B-06 configured in SIB1 may be different from each other, and the former is called a first CORESET #0 and the latter is called a second CORESET #0. SS #0 2B-03 configured in MIB and SS #0 2B-07 configured in SIB1 may be different from each other, and the former is referred to as a first SS #0 and the latter is referred to as a second SS #0. SS #0 and CORESET #0 configured for the RedCap terminal are referred to as a third SS #0 and a third CORESET #0. The first SS #0, the second SS #0, and the third SS #0 may be the same as or different from each other. The first CORESET #0, the second CORESET #0, and the third CORESET #0 may be the same as or different from each other. SS #0 and CORESET #0 are each indicated by a 4-bit index. The 4-bit index indicates a configuration predetermined in the standard specification. Except for SS #0 and CORESET #0, the detailed configuration of the remaining SS and CORSESET is indicated by each individual information element.

When the RRC connection is established, additional BWPs may be configured for the UE.

is a diagram illustrating operations of a terminal and a base station according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In a network consisting of a RedCap UE 3A-01, a base station 3A-03 and an AMF 3A-05, the RedCap UE receives system information, determines whether to bar a cell, performs cell reselection, monitors a paging message, selects and applies cell common configuration information and transmits and receives RRC control messages.

In step 3A-11, the RedCap UE camps on a cell managed by the base station by performing cell selection or cell reselection. The RedCap UE selects a cell having a good reception signal from among cells of the highest priority frequency in consideration of cell reselection priority and the like.

In step 3A-13, the RedCap UE receives the MIB in the selected cell.

The MIB includes controlResourceSetZero, which is a 4-bit index indicating the configuration of the first CORESET #0, and controlResourceSetZero, which is a 4-bit index, indicating the configuration of the first SS #0. The UE receives SIB1 by applying the frequency domain and time pattern indicated by the first CORESET #0 and the first SS #0.

The MIB includes cellBarred, which is 1-bit information indicating whether or not the cell is barred. cellBarred indicates either barred or notBarred. The UE uses cellBarred to determine whether to bar the cell.

The MIB includes a first intraFreqReselection that is 1-bit information for controlling intra-frequency cell reselection. The first intraFreqReselection is defined as Enumerated {allowed, notAllowed}. Also called IFRI_MIB.

In steps 3A-15, the RedCap UE receives SIB1. The RedCap UE stores the acquired SIB1. SIB1 includes ServingCellConfigCommon, which is common configuration information of a serving cell, and a second intraFreqReselection. The second intraFreqReselection is defined as enumerated with one of Allowed and notAllowed. It is also called IFRI_SIB.

In step 3A-16, the RedCap UE selects one of a plurality of common configuration information included in ServingCellConfigCommon.

The servingCellConfigCommon of SIB1 includes the following information.

ServingCellConfigCommon may also include the following information for RedCap UE.